1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to the art of cooking appliances and, more specifically, to a selectively sliding and tilting door assembly particularly designed for use on a microwave oven.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
It is widely known to provide a cooking appliance with a single, generally rectangularly shaped door that pivots about a defined axis. That is, top and bottom portions of the oven door are pivoted to a cabinet of the oven and the door is pulled outward from the appliance about a hinge axis to provide access to the oven cavity. For example, it is common to have a microwave oven door which is pivoted about a vertical axis. While this type of oven door has found wide spread use, it is not entirely satisfactory for every application. For instance, an oven door that rotates about a vertical axis projects outward from the appliance a considerable distance. This distance must be taken into consideration when deciding where to locate the appliance. Otherwise, the opened door could interfere with traffic or other patterns or even access to surrounding areas. In addition, such an oven door may require a user to move to one side of the appliance to fully open the door. In order, to address this problem, some manufacturers provide their ovens with other door configurations, such as doors which pivot about horizontal axes, with such arrangements having similar drawbacks.
The problems of access and space is of particular concern in connection with commercial kitchens such as found in fast food chains. In these locations, time and space are critical. In any case, despite the existence of various known door configurations, particularly for oven doors, there still is seen to exist a need for a. versatile door system. More specifically, there exists a need for a door system which can be used in various modes and which permits a door to move between opened and closed positions in various ways, thereby providing for at least, different access configurations.